Stream of Consciousness
The Secrets My Mother Kept
The Morning Light August 19, 2005 The beach stretched endlessly in both directions, a ribbon of silver sand unmarked by footprints or debris. It was that liminal hour just before dawn when the world held its breath, suspended between night and day. The lighthouse at the far end of the bay had already stopped its rotation, leaving only the faintest echo of its beam painting ghosts across the water.
By Parsley Rose 4 months ago in Fiction
The Book That Wrote Itself
The Book That Wrote Itself It began with a whisper. I had just moved into my grandmother’s old house after her passing. Among the dusty shelves and locked trunks, one object caught my attention—a leather-bound book with no title, resting silently in a wooden box. Its pages were blank, or so I thought.
By Muhammad Kaleemullah4 months ago in Fiction
The Train That Never Stops
M Mehran Every night at exactly 2:13 a.m., Sam heard the train. It was impossible. The town’s railway station had been closed for nearly twenty years, the tracks long abandoned, weeds curling around the rusted rails. Yet, like clockwork, the whistle echoed through the valley, low and mournful, followed by the distant rattle of wheels.
By Muhammad Mehran4 months ago in Fiction
A Dreamer's Journey
The neural crown fitted snugly around Pudding's head, its crystalline sensors pulsing with ethereal light as they delved deep into her unconscious mind. She had been asleep for nine months now, her frail body suspended in the gossamer threads of the Dream Weaver—a chair that seemed more grown than built, its organic curves shifting subtly with each of her breaths. Above her, translucent screens bloomed like jellyfish in the sterile air, displaying the vast archipelagos of her sleeping thoughts.
By Parsley Rose 4 months ago in Fiction
Stargazing
It is the second night I spend in the wilderness; laying on my back, stars especially bright in the jet black night sky. At such a high elevation in the mountains, there were no trees to block my view of constellations and the occasional comet. The remoteness promised no other hikers to ruin my serenity. My sister had planned a birthday trip to the Rockies in which we were going to hike the sky pond trail and continue on to Lake Haiyaha and the Emerald Lake loop; usually a day trip, we decided to pack a tent to watch the sunrise over Haiyaha. She was gone now though, so I lay staring at the stars alone, with a dry throat, cracked lips, and numb limbs. She felt no pain, but I wasn’t granted the same gift. My breath is short, as if my lungs were compressed, like a balloon that refuses to fill with air. My stomach, an endless chasm, a black hole gnawing at my insides. My head an ice pick, sending pain radiating throughout my skull and blurring my vision. I plead bleakly with the universe to let me join my sister, but to no avail.
By Alicia Moreno4 months ago in Fiction
Skin Deep
"It's so hot..." Ammy croaked, sprawled across the freshly polished wooden floor. A fan wheezed in the corner, rotating back and forth every few minutes, pushing nothing but dry, dusty air around the room. Usually the fan helped her survive the long summer days, but today it was useless.
By Parsley Rose 4 months ago in Fiction
The Crime of Her Hand in Mine. Runner-Up in The Shape of the Thing Challenge. Content Warning.
(Trigger warning for hateful language from one character in this work of flash fiction.) ~~~ Summer of 2012 The world was supposed to end a few months ago, but it didn’t. The billboard put up telling people to repent on the side of the town’s little two-lane highway still sits there, even though the anointed day of fire has come and gone. Without any flame, unsurprisingly. She’s still here, rinsing the remainder of the soap from the stained yellow sink, in the same kitchen with grease-stained walls.
By Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFA4 months ago in Fiction
The Message That Never Left
Elena typed the words three times before erasing them. The first draft was too blunt. We’re done. Don’t call me again. The second too sentimental. I’ll always care for you, but this isn’t working. The third hovered somewhere in the middle, but still her thumb trembled above the glowing blue arrow on the screen.
By Timothy A Rowland4 months ago in Fiction
The Room on the Plans. Runner-Up in The Forgotten Room Challenge.
The first time I saw the room, it was a photocopy at the city office, third floor, Planning and Development. Fluorescent lights buzzed like gnats. The clerk, a man in a loose tie and a loose understanding of urgency, slid the papers across the counter as if he were sending a raft down a lazy river.
By Aspen Noble4 months ago in Fiction
